Dreams and Nightmares
by Blackmoondragon1415
Summary: A narrative of the deleted scene in which the Giant has a flashback of his life before he arrived on Earth. Oneshot, please R&R.


Disclaimer: I don't own the Iron Giant.

Considering that I've wanted to do a story about this fandom [and I'll be jumping around quite a bit for now, lots of ideas], but haven't had the time/ideas/attention span to do it before now. And there was the Youtube video of a deleted scene that didn't make it into the movie... Either way, I would have loved to see that fully animated. Or at least colored and cleaned up.

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Dreams and Nightmares:

Long story short, it had not been a good day. It had started out fine, sure, but things had quickly gone downhill when the Giant and Hogarth had gone out for a walk in the woods. It had been a nice, clear day, the sun was shining, and the little flying creatures [Hogarth called them 'birds'.] were chirping a very pleasant song. The two had come across a deer, something that the Giant had been fascinated with, and had been sad to see it go. However, when a loud bang rang out through the forest, and the Giant had followed it back to its source to see the deer lying there, not moving, and suddenly very limp, he had been…uncomprehending. The Iron Giant understood that something was wrong, he just didn't know what. Then Hogarth had given the affliction name. Dead. The deer was dead. The men that had been in the clearing when he arrived had killed him, with something called a gun. Hogarth had pointed out the weapon to the Giant, who stared as though he were experiencing some sort of clarity.

In reality, he couldn't entirely get a clear memory of what precisely had changed. He just knew that, for a second there, he had seen red. The worst part was, it wasn't unfamiliar. He had done this before, he just didn't remember when.

He had sat there in the junkyard pondering it over. The deer, the gun, death, seeing red, the gun, _the gun, _the deer lying there far too limp, _why wasn't it moving…_

He had snapped sadly [Sad, was he sad? He wasn't sure he liked it.] out of his thoughts to see Hogarth stand on the car hood he had been flicking open and shut.

The young boy had been able to ease part of his mind. That the deer wasn't entirely dead, not all the way gone. The Giant knew that the deer had had a soul. And souls didn't die. Momentarily forgetting about the other thing, the 'seeing red', he fell into a quiet 'sleep'.

It didn't last. His mind, once it had descended into it's comatose state, started to, unconsciously, open up the part of his memory that had been locked away when he crashed in the ocean.

_Accessing lost files…Files fragmented, reconstruction at 50%...projecting…_

It had started with triggers that had been embedded in his more recent memory. Ones that piqued the events that had occurred before he arrived to this town.

_Don't you remember anything?_

No, at the time he didn't. But, trickling through the blanks were sensations, sounds, things that were alien and yet so familiar. The recent memory of the deer flickered into his 'mind' the sound of the gunshot ringing out like a calling card to whatever lay in the deeper recesses of his memory. For a moment, he saw the power plant, felt the jolt as the electricity shocked him backwards into the wires, the deceptively small cables delivering an even more powerful bite to his metal exterior. He could remember Hogarth [_You saw me save you…_] pulling the switch that had ended the agony for a few moments before he had quite simply passed out from the voltage. Still, in the dream, he did not pass out, instead, another image came, of a city being reduced to rubble by something he could not see, instead his eyes only caught the blasts.

_You came from the sky…_

The sky. The lights had come from the sky. But who was destroying the city, and why?

As though to answer the mental inquiry, his vision suddenly filled with a slew of metal beings, much like himself, that were marching out to the decimated city. Looking about, he surveyed the damage much like an impersonal audience, though he knew he could feel himself standing among the wreckage with the others. Did he do this?

_Don't even know where he came from, o- or what the hell he is!_

Seeing something that looked much like a pool of some kind by his feet, the Giant looked down at his reflection, almost not recognizing it. Though made somewhat hazy by the dirty substance, he was able to make out several _things_ protruding from his shoulders, a solitarily lighted dome where his face should have been, and his hands….

…They looked like _guns_.

Before he could even so much as panic at the unwelcome observation, something circular and green began to light up on his chest. The head had turned to look up at something, while the orb forming in the circle had started to grow brighter and brighter, humming in a manner similar to the circular metal at the power plant. Something about it seemed to scream 'DANGER'.

But then his memory took himself out, staring at the planet that he knew, somehow, that the city was on. For a moment, the rock looked almost forlorn. Then the surface had started to crack, lights and explosions spidering across it as it finally exploded in a red blaze, reminding the Giant horribly of the 'seeing red'.

Suddenly, a truth, what had been happening, what he was seeing, it was him doing all of these things. He was a **gun.**

_Core temperature rising…reconstruction halted…recharge cycle ended…_

The Iron Giant snapped up from his sprawl in the junkyard, momentarily looking around as though expecting to see similar phantoms to what skittered across his nightmares, quickly fading into the shadows. The image of his reflection, however, stayed with him for long after he laid back down.

It was just a dream, right?

It couldn't have actually happened. He wasn't a gun, he didn't kill others like the men killed that deer.

…right?

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So, if anyone who happens across this would just leave a review at the door, that'd be wonderful! Hope to see you next time!


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